I Wore All of Pharrell's Hats

At the Grammys this year, Pharrell really made a name for himself on the red carpet. By this point, his catchy song, "Happy" was dominating radios, bizarre homemade YouTube videos, and middle school dance floors all over the country, yet no one was talking about his music, because we were all focused on his hat. As he walked the red carpet, all eyes, cameras, and attention went straight to his head. "I don't hate it!" I declared in a room full of my coworkers who were frantically trying to google a nostalgic photo of Smokey the Bear, because only someone who fights forest fires wears a hat like that, natch.And thus an internet sensation was spawned: a twitter handle was born, a joking exchange between @pharrell and @arbys, and a week later a $10,000 ebay auction.Soon the copy cats/hats (seriously, someone put Pharrell's hat on cats) emerged: P Diddy borrowed the topper, as did LeBron James—even Oprah wore the thing. The latest celeb to go for the statement hat look: Lorde, who wore a Philip Treacy version of the attention-grabbing accessory at the MuchMusic awards earlier this week.With this in mind, I decided to hop on the bandwagon before this hat trick trend expires. Determined to be the next person spotted sporting serious head game, I asked the Vivienne Westwood team to lend me not one, but three of the classic Pharrell hats to test drive. Click ahead to see the results of my happy experiment.

I Wore All of Pharrell's Hats

I Wore All of Pharrell's Hats

At the Grammys this year, Pharrell Williams really made a name for himself on the red carpet. By this point, his incessantly catchy song, “Happy” was pretty much dominating radios, bizarre homemade YouTube videos and middle school dance floors all over the country, yet no one was talking about his music and that is because we were all focused on his hat. As he walked the red carpet, willfully ignoring the formal dress code in a red varsity jacket and jeans, all eyes, cameras and attention went immediately upwards—to his head. “I don’t hate it!” I declared in a room full of my coworkers who were frantically trying to Google a nostalgic photo of Smokey the Bear, because only someone that fights forest fires wears a hat like that, natch.

And with copy cats/hats aplenty (seriously, someone put Pharrell’s hat on cats), I thought it was time to see just what this hat was all about. It did start out as a fashion statement, after all. But as this hat’s rise to popularity climbed quicker than a Taylor Swift break up song, this project almost didn’t happen because, make whatever jokes you might, this hat has really gained momentum amongst the retail savvy public and has sold out internationally. Luckily, when you want something, being a fashion editor has its advantages and so when I begged the Vivienne Westwood team to let me test-drive some Pharrell hats, they made it happen for me.

Day 1

Day 1

I love anything big and outrageous. While I am not typically a hat-wearer, for the purposes of this story, I had to become one three-times over. Today, I am wearing the black version, which is fitting because I'm attending a cocktail party and dinner this evening and the black feels appropriately more formal. I paired the hat with a printed skirt from Suno, a sweater from Theory by Olivier Theyskens, and flat shoes from Tabitha Simmons. This hat seems to be pretty universally unisex, but because it was made famous by a man, I feel a primordial need to feminize it.